Minton was the most important ceramics factory during the Victorian period and began exhibiting products at the first Great Exhibition of 1851. Founded in 1793 by Thomas Minton at Stoke-on-Trent, the firm initially specialized in transferware pottery before expanding under the ownership of Thomas’s son Herbert Minton, beginning in 1836. Under the ownership of Colin Minton Campbell, who succeeded his uncle in 1858, the factory became recognized as a specialist producer of Aesthetics movement porcelain, which were inspired by a rich array of exotic and eclectic decorative motifs.